1What then shall we say that Abraham, our ancestor according to the flesh, has discovered regarding this matter?
2For if Abraham was declared righteous by the works of the law, he has something to boast about – but not before God.
3For what does the scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness*.”
4Now to the one who works, his pay is not credited due to grace but due to obligation.
5But to the one who does not work, but believes in the one who declares the ungodly righteous, his faith is credited as righteousness.
6So even David himself speaks regarding the blessedness of the man to whom God credits righteousness apart from works:
7“Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are covered;
8blessed is the one against whom the Lord will never count sin*.”
9Is this blessedness then for the circumcision or also for the uncircumcision? For we say, “faith was credited to Abraham as righteousness.”
10How then was it credited to him? Was he circumcised at the time, or not? No, he was not circumcised but uncircumcised!
11And he received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised, so that he would become the father of all those who believe but have never been circumcised, that they too could have righteousness credited to them.
12And he is also the father of the circumcised, who are not only circumcised, but who also walk in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham possessed when he was still uncircumcised.
13For the promise to Abraham or to his descendants that he would inherit the world was not fulfilled through the law, but through the righteousness that comes by faith.
14For if they become heirs by the law, faith is empty and the promise is nullified.
15For the law brings wrath, because where there is no law there is no transgression either.
16For this reason it is by faith so that it may be by grace, with the result that the promise may be certain to all the descendants – not only to those who are under the law, but also to those who have the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all
17(as it is written, “I have made you the father of many nations”). He is our father in the presence of God whom he believed – the God who makes the dead alive and summons the things that do not yet exist as though they already do.
18Against hope Abraham believed in hope with the result that he became the father of many nations according to the pronouncement, “so will your descendants be.”
19Without being weak in faith, he considered his own body as dead (because he was about one hundred years old) and the deadness of Sarah’s womb.
20He did not waver in unbelief about the promise of God but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God.
21He was fully convinced that what God promised he was also able to do.
22So indeed it was credited to Abraham as righteousness.
23But the statement it was credited to him was not written only for Abraham’s sake,
24but also for our sake, to whom it will be credited, those who believe in the one who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead.
25He was given over because of our transgressions and was raised for the sake of our justification.